Amplifying the Curriculum: Designing Quality Learning Opportunities for Multilingual Learners

“This second edition is a fantastic resource for teachers of ELL–classified students and other multilingual learners.” ―Wayne E. Wright, Purdue University

“A must-read for anybody committed to improving the education of multilingual learners.” ―Nelson Flores, Penn GSE

“This meticulously crafted second edition is a book for our time, and for decades to come.” ―Magaly Lavadenz, Loyola Marymount University

“What makes the second edition of this valuable guide so special is that the authors do not leave behind any multilingual learners.” ―Ofelia García, City University of New York

This thoroughly updated edition presents a model for how K–12 educators can design high-quality, challenging, and supportive learning opportunities for multilingual learners.

Starting with the premise that conceptual, analytic, and language practices develop simultaneously as students engage in disciplinary learning, the authors argue for instruction that amplifies―rather than simplifies―expectations, concepts, texts, and learning tasks. They offer clear guidance for designing well-supported lessons with examples that demonstrate the approach in elementary and secondary classrooms across various subject areas (math, science, language arts, and social studies) and contexts (including newcomer classrooms and a new chapter written in Spanish on instruction in students’ home languages).

This resource guides teachers through the coherent design of tasks, lessons, and units that invite all students to engage in productive, meaningful, dialogic, and intellectually engaging activity. The book concludes with a discussion of where teachers might begin and how teacher educators, professional development providers, and educational leaders can support them in these efforts.

Book Features:

• Provides discipline-specific examples that are fully unpacked to guide teachers in creating ambitious and supportive learning tasks, lessons, and units of study.
• Supports teachers in their own instructional design by providing guiding tenets, a framework for designing lessons, and multiple examples in different subject areas.
• Offers a compelling argument, supported with examples and guidelines, that highlights the centrality of interactions in the development of student academic autonomy.
• Provides practical guidance grounded in sociocultural/ecological theory, applied linguistics, and theories about effective learning of disciplinary practices.
• Includes real-life lessons that have been successfully implemented in classrooms with multilingual learners at all levels of language proficiency.

Aída Walqui directs the National Research and Development Center to Improve Education for Secondary English Learners, funded by the Institute of Education Sciences and housed at WestEd, where she started the Quality Teaching for English Learners (QTEL) initiative. George C. Bunch is professor and chair of education at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Peggy Mueller is a lifelong educator, teacher educator, curriculum developer, and education policy analyst.